Ain't Nobody Got Time for That

A friend of mine, god bless her, had her second child a few days ago. She's home from the hospital now, where they kick you out 48 hours after you squeezed a miniature human out of your body (72 hours if doctors had to slice through your innards to retrieve the baby), and in the throes of the stage I like to call What The Hell Have I Done? In a recent email I congratulated her, and she wrote back -- under the mistaken belief that I have this motherhood thing figured out -- asking "How do I parent 2? How much wine is too much? Tell me everything."

I replied:

"The best advice I can give is to figure out who has the most pressing need and take care of that first. Sometimes it's you. And that's okay.

It's hard. In about three months you'll come up for air, wondering what the hell happened. But you will have survived, and probably the baby and the toddler will too, and that's what's important. Hang in there.

Also skip the wine and go straight to the hard stuff. Ain't nobody got time for sipping."